Some Days
by MiroTheCat
Summary: ...are just not worth getting out of bed. Like, every day when you're the Knave of Hearts. Some are worse than others, though.


As usual, he was woken by his name being screamed from who-knows-where in the castle, quite possibly the throne room given who the owner of that horrid voice was. He rolled over in bed and looked at the clock. Four in the fucking morning? What could she possibly need at this hour? Why was she even awake at this hour? Her majesty the queen of pains in the ass liked to stay up late and then sleep in normally. Regretfully, and with great misgivings about leaving his warm bed, he donned his armor and went to find her.

Fifteen minutes later, sporting a well-defined and throbbing handprint on his left cheek for having taken too long in reaching her side after being summoned, he was mounting his horse to go in search of some mysterious person who might or might not actually exist who the queen of paranoid bitches was certain had been trying to sneak in her window. She had wanted the culprit by lunchtime, but with a little reason and a lot of flattery, he had until breakfast the next morning to do it. In his opinion, this intruder of hers didn't exist, which meant he'd have to come up with something else. Again.

The sun wasn't even up yet, and already it was a cold, gray, and drizzling day. He shivered and pulled his cloak more tightly around him. Three hours of sleep and then being thrown out into this weather was torture for a man whose body was now beginning to give him the bill for his years of treating it roughly. What he needed was a hot bath, hot breakfast, and hotter tea. And a full night of sleep without being kept awake to guard the bloody big head until midnight or later and then woken by her screeching only a few hours later. All of those things, once again denied to him, would have sat very well indeed with his aching joints and fuzzy head.

Twenty-four hours later, he had had a very cold and disgusting dunking in a swamp, had his arm sliced open through a gap in his armor by a rusty barbed wire fence trying to crawl out of said swamp, fallen back in while trying to untangle himself from the wire, gotten caught in a thunderstorm, and been forced to eat some sort of highly questionable food made by a particularly dirty peasant for lack of anything else remotely edible. His clothes under his armor were soaked through and his arm hurt like a bitch. He was colder, wetter, and more tired than he could remember ever having been before. Trying to use his injured arm brought a stab of pain and a fresh trickle of blood, so eventually he stopped trying and let his hand rest limply on the front of his saddle. So tired. He leaned on his horse's neck for support. He wasn't far from Salazen Grum now, not far from his bed. He still didn't have anyone for the queen to behead, and his time was almost up. Shit. He had no energy to do anything about it, and his horse had no energy to chase after anyone. He barely had the energy to stay in the saddle.

He couldn't be sure, but it was probably the pain in his arm that woke him. He was on the ground, his horse sniffing at him quizzically. Had he fallen asleep on horseback and fallen off? He couldn't think of any other explanation. He pulled himself to his feet, noticing that the gash on his arm had been reopened in his fall and was bleeding heavily again. Someone reached him just as he went to remount, expressing concern. They'd seen him fall. He couldn't have witnesses to his weakness if he was to remain feared and respected, and he needed a scapegoat for his psychotic mistress. This person whoever they were would do.

"There you are, Stayne. That took you long enough. Where is the culprit?"

"In the dungeons, majesty." Even kneeling, he was having difficulty remaining in an upright position. Lack of sleep or proper food and blood loss obviously. He'd be okay if only he could rest and bind the cut.

"Excellent. You may approach me now." He managed despite his dizziness to stand and staggered up the steps of her absurd little platform, (heart shaped, like everything else, honestly, couldn't she throw in another shape once in a while for variety) feeling the eyes of the court on him and knowing that they took in his poor condition. "Is there something wrong, my knave? Why do you not show me your usual enthusiasm?" She was in one of her dangerous moods, where it could turn in any direction for any or no reason.

He fell to his knees again, half to placate her by showing submission, half out of weakness. "I am sorry your majesty. I am not well at present and need the attentions of a doctor. Any lack of enthusiasm on my part is entirely due to my poor health. Please forgive me."

Her mood turned in the helpful direction for once. "Someone fetch a doctor for my knave!" She shouted, "I want you to make him healthy for me!" Immediately the previously wooden members of the court swarmed him trying to show the queen that they were the most helpful. Before he had time to think, they had bustled him to his quarters and helped him off with his armor and he was lying on his bed in just his undergarments and sinking into blissful darkness even as they told him that the doctor would be right there.

His only means of judging how much time had passed was the frantic tone in the queen's voice. She could be heard shouting at the doctor out in the hall, threatening to take his head off if her favorite didn't get better. At the moment, he couldn't seem to care. He felt horrid. His arm was feeling better at least, although that was probably simply because it was too thoroughly bandaged for him to move it and accidentally reopen it. The rest of him felt worse. He ached all over, it felt as if his head was stuffed with cotton balls, and there seemed to be a great weight sitting on his chest. And the room was much too hot. He tried to pick himself up enough to get rid of the blankets, but he was overcome with a violent coughing fit that knocked him back into his pillows again.

"Looks like he's awake now." He heard the door open and the footsteps of the doctor entering, followed by the queen, then felt a wonderfully cold hand on his forehead. "Oh dear, fever's still rising. How do you feel?"

"Awful." He started coughing, struggling for breath, again. The doctor listened to his heart and lungs, felt his glands, and poured out generous measures of several vile-looking medicines for him that made him retch when he swallowed them. He was just slipping off to sleep again, breathing eased somewhat, when he heard that loud obnoxious voice again.

"Well? Is he better yet? I need my knave back." He kept his eye closed and his face blank. The doctor could deal with this one. He wasn't going to attend to her every whim if he had an excuse not to. Maybe he could even get an early retirement out of this if he played it right. Maybe. He could hope anyway.

* * *

_Another older one that was sitting around from right after the movie first came out. I got a laugh out of the unreasonable queen and FML knave when I found this one._


End file.
